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Tanios Bekaii-Saab, Medical Oncology and Pharmacology

Posted on | January 5, 2011 | 1,684 views | Comments Off

What is the expected life span of a person with pancreatic and colon/rectal cancer? Why are they so deadly?

The expected life span of a patient with pancreatic or colon/rectal cancer depends on the stage the cancer is in. For a person in an early stage of pancreatic cancer, 20-30 percent survive five years, while only 5 percent survive that long if the cancer is at a later stage, such as stage 4, or is metastatic. For a person with early stage colon/rectal cancer, 70-90 percent survive five years, while only 11 percent survive if the cancer is in an advanced stage or if the cancer is metastatic. The morbidity rates are remarkably high because, for one thing, these cancers present themselves at the later stage, and by that time are typically incurable. Also, despite surgery and therapy, pancreatic and colon cancer often come back and, by that point, patients can be treated but not cured.

Has the lifespan increased in recent years? Why?

There has been marked improvement in the lifespan of pancreatic cancer patients over the past decade. However, when we say improvement, we mean a small percentage increase in the five-year survival statistic. Many patients are being treated at places like the Ohio State Medical Center, where multidisciplinary groups of medical experts can diagnose, treat and research the disease. The survival rate of colon/rectal cancer has seen an even more remarkable improvement mainly thanks to better expertise, better drugs and better surgery than, say, 40 years ago. Life span has almost doubled over five years, early stage survival rate has improved 40-50 percent and the advanced stage survival rate has improved by 200 percent. Before treatment such as chemotherapy, patients lived on average less than one year. That average is now three years, and some can even live 10 years or more.

What are some innovations at OSU or elsewhere contributing to the fight against these cancers?

Most of the advances in the fight against these cancers have been in new chemotherapy agents. Researchers have been developing more and more targeted agents — drugs that act as a smart-bomb against the specific receptors that sit on the cancer cells. Researchers also can profile cancers and identify genetic abnormalities and find a way to target these proteins. Specifically for colon/rectal cancer, we now know that early screening saves lives, especially if the patient has a family history of the disease. Yet the problem is that the screenings are very invasive; 50 percent of patients who should get them don’t. Thanks to new technological innovations, patients can now opt for a virtual colonoscopy, which is a completely non-invasive procedure.

Ohio State has been a very active group in researching and treating both in colon/rectal, pancreatic and other GI cancers. We have one of the nation’s largest research studies on pancreatic cancer dedicated to targeting every stage of the cancer. For example, OSU has developed a new virus that is injected into a patient and is then activated in the pancreatic cancer cells to kill them. We also have developed new agents so patients are more able to go to surgery in the early stages. For colon/rectal cancer, Ohio State researches have identified genes that make people more at risk for the cancer and have developed some of the most innovative drugs on the market.

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